Its the Journey not the destination
by Bityjimy
Summary: The little misadventures of Ellie and Joel.
1. Though the woods

I don't know if this is going to be a series. Maybe if I feel like it. `\_("-)_/`

* * *

I knew this was a horrible idea.

I knew that letting her guide us through these god-forsaken woods for just a few minutes was a bad Idea. I mean she just 14 years old! And the world were living in is especially unforgiving. But I Just had to listen to her and let her lead for a few minutes. Me and My damn conscious.

And now, Ellie and myself are lost in the middle of nowhere with little supplies and little protection from hunters, infected and the weather. God it just had to rain at a time like this.

"Well look at the bright side..."

I looked back at Ellie who now relinquished her position of navigator back to me skeptically.  
When she doesn't speak for a few more seconds I try to prod the rest of the words out of her mouth.

"The bright side be'in ?"

"..." There's a cricket in the background.

"That's what I thought."

"Look I'm sorry for getting us lost Joel but I wanted to lead for a bit." _Well it's certainly the last time I'm letting you lead._

"If I remember correctly you lead us in circles around the same patch of bushes 3 times." _On the bright side of that we were able to gather some ripe raspberries._

"I thought I saw something around the bushes."

"Lets just get a move on and find some shelter from the rain."

We continued to hike for a good 3 miles till we heard gruff voices in the distance.

"Hey! Fucking watch it asshole! You almost shot me!"

"Sorry man, I told ya I have terrible aim with this piece a shit."

There were 2 men who looked like hunters firing at makeshift targets in a steep ravine. It looked like they were out here alone but the fact that they were here at all means that we couldn't stay out in the open for long. When I took a closer look at them I noticed they were carrying a lot of supplies. I saw that they made a little camp complete with a fire and seating arrangements a few meters away from where they were shooting. They had something cooking in a pot over the fire and they had their stuffed backpacks laid out on the ground a few feet of where they were standing. Not to mention all the bullets they were wasting.

I told Ellie that we were going to relieve them of their luggage.

I gave Ellie my hunting rifle which now had a nice scope attached to it from which I scavenged from the last town we crossed. I told her that she were to stay where we were already crouched, behind a fallen tree that gave us a nice vantage view of the hunters, and to shoot the one on the right with the hoodie on. She nodded in confirmation.

I slipped down into the ravine whilst not making a sound thanks to my well-worn boots. I carefully make my way up to the unsuspecting hunters trusting Ellie not to miss her shot.

* * *

We kept walking till we stumble upon a hollow cave. The cave was the size of 2 large bedrooms and was discovered to be vacant after me and Ellie searched around for a minute to make sure that we wouldn't be welcomed with any surprises. We decide to camp there for the night and dry ourselves off till morning. I had Ellie gather some little branches while I started lighting a small fire. When Ellie came back with the twigs I stated feeding them to the little flame. I made it not too big so that it would attract unwanted attention but small enough to keep us warm with its heat.

When we were somewhat settled into our temporary camp that's when Ellie initiated our little ritual of her asking questions and me answering them.

"Hey Joel, have you ever seen a lion before?"

"No I haven't seen a lion before."

"Have you ever went skydiving before?"

"No I never went skydive'in before."

"Have you ever been in a monster truck before?"

"Yeah I've been in one or two before."

"What was it like?"

"It was nice."

This game of ours usually lasted till she fell asleep but tonight she decided, for some reason, to breached a sensitive topic.

"Hey Joel?"

"Hmm?"

"How many loved ones have you lost during the outbreak?"

If she had asked this when we had started our journey, I would have ignored the question and left it hang in the air to rot.  
But, after all we have endured together so far. After me saving her ass a few times and her looking out for mine. Even tho neither one of us would admit it. There's some semblance of a bond that tie me with my graying hairs and this little girl of 14 together.  
Even when I tell myself she's just cargo that needs to be delivered she always has that innocence in her eyes that makes the bond just a little bit tighter. So I proceed to answer her question.

"One too many."


	2. The School

This is my second attempt at conjuring up a Fan Fiction so please criticize my writing to the best of your abilities if you do choose to review. Thank you and enjoy. I do not own anything from "The Last Of Us"

HAPPY SUMMER VACATION!

* * *

"Ellie keep run'in!"

I volt over a fallen desk that was tilted on its side, marked with various scratches and blood stains. Joel was only one step behind me firing his revolver at the clickers that were stumble-sprinting, trying to catch us. We turned down the hallway to the right and that's when I saw another hoard of runners coming our way. It took one second for me to look around and find an ajar door open to our left 3 meters away leading into a classroom.

By unspoken consent me and Joel bolted to the door and went inside. Joel immediately took action of barricading the door we just came though with the nearest heavy object which happened to be a cabinet. The pounding and screeching on the other side of the door thankfully ceased after a few minutes. We were now trapped inside an abandoned school that we had to go inside of because it was the only way of getting to the other side of the town we were in.

After a few seconds of catching our breaths Joel went to have a look around the deserted classroom.

"I think my heart's gonna explode." It took me some time to form the words because of how hard I was trying to get air into my lungs. And the pain in my side wasn't helping at all.

"From what? The running or the infected?" Joel was breathing as hard as I was but he didn't seem all too effected by it. For an old guy he was in shape.

"From both I think." I didn't run or exercise much in the quarantine zones or when I was with the fireflies because I was either staying back and lounging, waiting for something to happen or I was hiding from the military.

"Well at least your get'in fit." I don't know if that was an insult or just a statement but it kinda ticked me off.

"Are you saying I'm not healthy?" He better not say I'm not.

"No I'm just say'in that you are a bit slow." A twitch on the corner of his mouth told me he was trying to tease me. The bastard.

"Oh ha ha fucking funny Joel."

Joel continued to look around the room for anything that might be of use while I took a look around my self. I spotted a poster of the human skeletal system labeling all the bones, tendons joints, and ligaments and right beside it were other posters of the human body systems. "_This must have been an anatomy class."_

"Huh? What the hell?" I looked over to where Joel was standing. There was a note pined to a wooden table with a scalpel; Joel pulled the scalpel out and placed it into his backpack.

"What is that Joel?" He scanned the paper and took 4 seconds to read what was written; then he handed the note to me.

The note wasn't particularly long nor was it particularly well-written; smudges were on some of the words so you couldn't read parts of the sentences. It looked rushed, like the writer only had half a minute to convey what he wanted to write. It was probably a last-will or whatever people call the things that people do when they know that death had its scythe hanging at their necks.

_To anyone who reads this, please take care of llllllllllllllll.  
She may be a llllll but I love her like a daughter.  
She's lllllllllllll to the infection so please if you find her take good care of her. Please._

"What a weird letter. What could this mean?" I had a good guess at what it meant but I had to ask Joel what his thoughts about it were._  
_

Joel put his backpack on the floor and started crafting some bandages. He had a solemn look on his face. "_This probably isn't the first time he's seen something like this."_

"I reckon it means that some poor fellow bit the dust." Of course that much was obvious but I was wondering who or what the "she" was.

"What do you think the this guy was writing about?" The smudges were censoring some of the key words that would have enlightened us about who/what this guy was talking about.

He gave a gruff response, "Probably about someone he cared for."

"Hmm." How sad and cruel this world could be.

"How sa-"

I didn't get to complete my sentence because of something pouncing on me and making me land smack on my back.

I had my eyes close and arms raised themselves in front of my face by instinct."Shit! Joel h-help me!" That's when I felt something wet and smelly lick my right cheek. "What the flying fuck!?"

I snapped my eyes open to see a an animal panting with its rancid breath in front of my face.

I pushed it off of me and got up to wipe my face of slobber. All the while Joel was watching with an astounded look. When I looked back to the four-legged thing it was still panting with its jaws agape, tongue hanging loosely out of its mouth, looking up at me and Joel with something akin to expectancy.

"Woof!"

"What the... a dog?"

It looked like a Golden retriever with a dirty but still golden pelt. It was almost as big as me as the tip of it's head Came up to meet my torso. Where the dog came from and how or why it was still here was beyond me.

It padded over to Joel and tried positioning its head under his palm. Joel let it and started softly petting the top of its head. The dog let him know it was pleased when it started to like his fingers.

"How did it manage to sneak up on us?"

The dog then spotted something that immediately captured its full interest. It then proceeded to chase and try and catch it. That something was its wagging tail. While it was going in circles trying, in vain, to catch its tail that was only a few centimeters out of reach, Joel and I started contemplating our positions with this new furry arrival.

"Well.. What now Joel?"

The older man gave a throaty cough, "We can't stay here any longer, we got to get a move on."

"What about the dog? Are we just going to leave him here?" Even if I got drooled on by a dog it seemed kind of cruel to just leave it here all by itself.

"Ellie it might be infected, just leave him here." _Animals can get infected? I haven't seen that before._

The dog was now finished (or it just gave up on) chasing around its tail and was now licking the bottoms of its front paws.

"Okay."

Taking one last look at the dog that was too preoccupied with its own paws; we went out through a window that led to the outside of the school. The building was surrounded by a fenced hedge so we could move a few meters away from the school but we couldn't leave the premises. We continued along the outer wall of the school till we located a window we could open.

Joel slid the window screen to the left and stuck his head part way inside to check and see if it was safe to enter. When he deemed it clear of any threats he went inside first and then helped me into what looked to be a small office. There was a one person work desk gathering dust on the right side of the room with a small cabinet right next to it. A lone chair was knocked over in the middle of the room.

Same routine, search the room for supplies and anything useful. We got lucky this time because inside some of the drawers in the table and cabinet were 2 rifle bullets, 5 small arms bullets with which only 3 had the actual bullet in them, and 6 shotgun slugs. Joel was really happy when we found ammo for his shotgun.

After we searched the room for anything else we continued out through the door that lead outside the office. we entered a sort of lobby probably for the receptionists. The exit that lead out of the lobby had its door and hinges broken off so we left the lobby through that. We were now in a hallway just like the one the clickers and runners were chasing us through. The floor tiles were a shady green and the walls were stark off white cement. There were lockers that were also green but were a lighter hue than the tiles laying on the floor. The lockers were lined up on the wall reaching from one end of the hall all the way to the other end. A question popped up in my head as we were walking where former students used to gossip and rush to their classes.

"What was it like? Going to school?"

Joel put on a thoughtful face "Well you learned some stuff you would like, some stuff you wouldn't, and some stuff that you would probably never use in the future."

"Hmm, Seems kinda boring."

"Well you would have other kids to socialize with during school."

"Is that so... Joel! A wild clicker has appeared!" It stumbled out of a janitor closest and was now playing statue in the middle of the hall while making its signature clicking sound.

We immediately froze and hugged the wall whilst not making a sound.

Joel gave me a weird look and whispered, "What was that about Ellie?"

"What?"

"A wild clicker has appeared?"

"Oh I heard it somewhere when I was with the fireflies. It was in a game that someone owned. I don't remember what the game was called but I think it had 'poke' in the title."

Unfortunately it looked like the clicker wasn't going anywhere. It seemed content just standing there in the middle of the hallway just clicking away.

"Shit we have to go around."

But we couldn't turn around because 10 meters away from where we were, another clicker appeared from one of the classrooms from down the hall. And then another came wobbling in. And then another, and then another until the constant clicking of all the clickers became almost unbearable.

Joel grit his teeth, "God damn." He pulled out his shotgun, ammunition already in the chamber.

"Ellie when I shoot, run. Got it?" He gave me a stern look.

I whispered back, "Got it."

Joel slowly crouch walked toward the first clicker that was solitary at one end of the hallway. When he was about 3 meters away from the clicker he pointed the shotgun barrel right at its fungi-infested face and 'click, BANG, Splat' We were sprinting down the hall with a dozen clickers right on our tail. The bad thing about Joel's call to run in this direction was that the exit to the school was in the opposite direction of where we were heading. But considering the fact that the way to the exit was body blocked by a lot of clickers it was probably best that we are heading away from the exit.

We kept running till we reached an entrance to the school library. We went inside and tried to barricade the doors but this time the only thing we could move and barricade the doors with in time were books, and they weren't going to hold for a long time. I spotted a windowsill on the other side of the room and signaled for Joel to come over quick. There was no way to slide or pop open the window so Joel did the next best thing in this type of situation, he used the stock of the shotgun to smash it open. The glass wasn't thick so breaking it looked like a breeze.

A clicker had gotten in library and was closing in on us fast. The rest were still pounding away at the door.

Joel motioned for me to go first so I did. But soon after I crawled out the window a clicker had tackled Joel to the ground and tried to sink its teeth into flesh but Something amazing happened.

The dog from before came running in (from nowhere, once again) and head butted the infected off of Joel which gave the old man enough time to regain hold of his shotgun and fire a spray of lead at the dazed clicker.

Joel glanced at the dog, "Good boy."

* * *

After that whole school fiasco Joel and I quickly headed out-of-town and unto a path that would lead to where we needed to go.

And we gained a new companion after we left the school.

"Woof!"

Joel shot the dog a glare, "Eh! Keep it down."

The dog gave a whimper.

"Joel! Don't be like that. He's just happy."

The dog followed us when we left the school and it still followed us out-of-town. I had no problem with having a pet just as long as it doesn't pounce on me again but Joel felt a little skeptical of having to take care of another energetic critter.

* * *

Half an hour before

"Ah come on Joel, can't we keep him?"

"Ellie for the last time, no."

"But he totally saved your but back there!"

"Woof!"

Joel gave a tired sigh. "Your not gonna budge on this are you?"

"Nope." I replied, Popping the 'p'.

"Fine he can tag along."

"YAY!"

"Woof!"

* * *

Author's note -

Should I keep the dog or should I remove him form further stories? Hmm... Leave a comment in the reviews.  
There are probably a lot of these so GRAMMAR MISTAKES GALORE!


End file.
